There is much discussion about how to build software right. Agile techniques help in getting the software right. But are a good process and a good result good enough? Are you building the right software?
I’m a big fan of risk management and prioritized feature lists but they are not enough. You need to understand how the solution fits into the corporate strategy and how it adds value to the company. Simple, right?
Of course not. All that rhetoric about aligning the business and IT is nonsense but there are few things to consider. You don’t want to end up with a great software implementation that misses the mark in term of what the business needs. Here are a few questions to ponder:
- What business problems is the software expected to solve?
- Are there related problems that will be solved by other approaches?
- Will there be lingering problems that the software is not expected to address?
This is all part of scoping out the entire problem space and envisioning how your software fits in. You can’t solve all the company’s problems but you can understand how your software fits in.
This blog entry at NetObjectives got me to thinking about this topic. Take a look!